Tag: photo

During 39 walks between August 2012 and August 2015, I took thousands of photos and noticed that I tended to focus on things that had changed, were likely to change or oddly have not yet changed.

This could include anything from buildings under construction to abandoned (ghost) stations to anachronisms to important international events. London is a unique place where you can to see change unfold right before your eyes.

Below I've featured 39 photos, one photo from each walk, that mostly look at some aspect of change in London that I observed during the past 3 years.

These are not necessarily my best photos or even good photos, but each of them tells a small London story that I find interesting. I hope you do too.

About the photo:Blackfriars Station. This photo of was taken between the end of the 2012 Summer Olympics (25 July to 12 August 2012) and the start of the 2012 Summer Paralympics (29 August to 9 September 2012). Just a small reminder of how of London was blanketed with signs for London 2012 just a few years ago.

How's this for a Friday photo? Daniel Thorndycraft describes how he took the picture above:

"I was looking at trying to find somewhere to upload a photo that I took at 09:30 Tuesday 21st January as I was on my way to a training course just over the Southwark Bridge

I was gutted that I didn’t take me DSLR with me and this was taken on my iPhone 5, the only things on my phone that was switched on was the HDR function and its not been adjusted on the phone at all, and I was stunned at to how perfect it looked, and I know have it on my background on my work computer, I hope you like it as much as I do!"

While I don't think this is a particularly good photo of Blackfriars Railway Bridge, it does show something very interesting going on. The bridge is going to be covered in solar PV panels, which will generate around 900,000 kWh of electricity per year. To put that in perspective a typical large home solar system produces about 3,500kWh per year. Once completed the Blackfriars solar PV system will generate about 50% of the station's entire power needs.

This combined with the fact that you can already enter Blackfriars station from either side of the Thames - makes it the most interesting railway station in London - in my opinion.

Story:I've been meaning to post this picture for awhile now. Given that I've featured a lot about the Shard this week I though now was as good a time as any. This photo was taken the morning of May 30th, 2012. I'm not sure what caused the bizarre shiny reflection, but it is not photoshopped. Many other people got the exact same photo that day. Really neat to see, almost make it look like a beacon of progress.